When feeding sheets from a stack of sheets to a processing station such as a laser printer, for example, it is desired to feed the sheets as quickly as possible without a paper jam. Thus, a minimum gap must be maintained between adjacent sheets being fed from the stack of sheets.
Faster feeding of the sheets from a stack of sheets will increase the throughput of a printer. However, if faster throughput is obtained, for example, by increasing the speed of the motor driving the feed rollers, which pick the sheet from the stack of sheets, the power requirements of the printer will increase to increase the cost of the printer. Therefore, it is desired to maximize the throughput of a printer by feeding sheets from the stack of sheets at the fastest rate possible.
To obtain maximum throughput, a gap between the fed sheets should be as small as possible. When the sheets are fed from the stack of sheets by feed rollers mounted on a floating pick arm as shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,527,026 to Padget et al, which is incorporated by reference herein, the time for the floating pick arm to settle increases as each sheet is removed from the stack of sheets. Accordingly, it is necessary that a minimum gap accommodate the settling characteristics of the floating pick arm without causing a paper jam when the floating pick arm feeds at the lowest point in the stack of sheets where the settling time is greatest.